Recently married and trying to put together a family budget with my wife which we honestly should’ve done earlier since we’re expecting kids soon, and after googling around it seems most Japanese people use the お小遣い okotsukai system where all the income is pooled (well, my wife will quit her job and become a full time mother for a while, so it’ll just be mine) and then a percentage of what is left after bills is given to each of us each month to either spend on what we want, or save it and use the next month, etc etc.
It seemed like a good idea to me and my wife said her parents always did the same thing, so I googled it and there’s lots of examples and calculations on yahoo chiebukuro or money budgeting aires about it. It seems that for families with kids 5%-10% of take home (for two of us) is the standard. I currently earn around 15 million which means 5% works out at about 40,000 yen (20,000 yen each) as spending money we’d get.
Honestly was pretty shocked when I saw that. And if you look a the ‘manekatsu’ website it says that 20k is extremely high! Maybe my life as a single person was way overboard but I think I could spend that 20k in a week easily just going out on one night on the weekend. If I wanted to buy say a PS5 or something I’d have to ‘save’ most of 3 months worth of money etc. Is there something I’m missing here or is this just the sacrifice starting a family takes? I knew while my salary was good for a single person I would take a hit but I feel like I’m basically going to be poor again. Anyone else have any similar experience?
25 comments
Kids are expensive as fuck. Sounds about right. There are so many expenses associated with kids you don’t even know about. Why I DON’T have kids 😅
If you spent ¥20,000 just on 1 night out when you were single you better be prepared to cut back. Kids are expensive and it was your choice to have them, so you need to make sacrifices.
You have a nice salary, I wonder how much in savings and investments you have. I saved and invested all my life (since my teens), spending on things from time to time but not blowing money on frivolous stuff. By the time I was 52 I retired and now enjoy my life traveling and doing whatever the heck I want with no financial concerns for the rest of my life.
Think about the life you can have with your family in the long term. Although those plans allow for pocket money, I would just invest it generally and spend on the occasional item/experience
‘I currently earn around 15 million’
‘I knew while my salary was good for a single person I would take a hit but I feel like I’m basically going to be poor again.’
Either this is a troll or dude needs a serious reality check… supporting 3 people on a 15-million yen salary, even in Toyko, cannot be considered ‘poverty’ by any stretch of the imagination
I don’t pool money. If I’m smart enough to earn what I do and look after family, I don’t see how having budget constraints on myself will improve that
It’s rough. My wife quit working when our child was born. In hindsight, I think it was the right decision. But you really lose out on savings. She didn’t begin working again until our child started JHS. So personally, I wish I’d pressed her to start sooner around the 3rd or 4th grade when elementary kids start clubs and won’t be coming home at 2 in the afternoon. Also while budgeting works for some, we just sorta learned to live off of my income. Then later when she started working, we continued living off of my income alone, while putting 100% of hers into savings. We still do that now.
I did learn to cut back on expenses by drinking water. Keeping an alternating system of three water bottles in the fridge. Buying pet bottles of drinks is expensive, so have saved a lot by not buying. After watching the barber use hair clippers on my hair, I realized I could save money cutting my own. I’ve been cutting my own hair for a long long time now. So I’d recommend seeing what you can do without or how you can save money through your daily and monthly activities.
With kids, who has time to spend money on themselves? We do 5000 each a month and I’m currently sitting on about 60,000 yen worth of okotsukai money to spend. We could afford more as I make something like 2+ times as much as the average salary in our prefecture but if we can’t even spend it, why even bother?
Realize also that at 15m yen income you are in the top 10% of salaries in all of Japan so some budget and financial ideas will be a little different than Taro-san who makes 5 million a year.
We used to use this system – about the same as you, about 20,000 each. It was okay for a while but in the end both of our salaries kept growing, and we kept making exceptions so we stopped using it. It was good for saving money at the time though.
My advice would be to try it and see how it goes. It made my wife happy at the time after we were newly married, so I just went with the flow.
Your income has to support your wife and children. Of course you will not be able to spend like you did when you were single. When I stopped working to have our baby my Husband had to make sacrifices like not buying expensive clothing all the time like he did when we were dating.
With the PS5 situation you can discuss large purchases with your family and see if everyone’s happy with putting less money in savings for that month instead of saving 3 months worth of fun money. Honestly you are earning 15 million you aren’t going to struggle. My Husband earns around 8 million in comparison.
We just have a monthly budget that we try to keep our spending under. It’s based on my financials goals I want to reach by 45,50 etc.
If your monthly budget includes eating out together, travel etc, then 40,000 yen is quite a bit tbh
>I think I could spend that 20k in a week easily just going out on one night on the weekend.
yeah, you’re not gonna go out partying for the foreseeable future anymore my friend. if you can get a day off from the kids you better spend that on some quality time with your wife and have to be back when the parents in law wanna go to bed. welcome to having kids!
As if a well off Japanese housewife is gonna stick to 20,000 per month spending money.
This should better go to /r/japanfinance, but based on /r/personalfinance the answer seems obvious. This is what they recommend in /r/personalfinance, adapted to Japan:
1. Make a realistic **budget**. The income goes first to pay taxes, then **necessities** like rent, food, utilities, etc. There should have a significant amount of money left with high salary, so then;
2. Build an **emergency** deposit, this does not need to be as large as in /r/personalfinance since we are in Japan (more safety nets), but still ~3 months of expenses seem about right. Nobody touches that unless it’s an EMERGENCY. Any savings like for a planned trip should go ON TOP of this. This should take a bit, the next steps only come after this step is over.
3. Then back to have extra money every month since the emergency deposit is there. This depends on priorities, but I’d set a “fun money” budget. As other says, with a baby this should really be a tiny amount (baby expenses are necessities and should be classified as such).
4. Maximize the **NISA tax-free** account. For both people in a marriage!
5. Probably the last step took care of the rest of the money, but if there are leftovers those also go into (normal) investments.
When planning for a larger expense (a trip, a car, a mortgage, etc) take a fixed amount of money somewhere before step 3 or 4, depending how much leftover is in these categories.
Note: this is my self-guide, not for you or anyone else, adapted straight from /r/personalfinance for Japan lifestyle.
My wife and I put 60% of our post taxed income into a family account. The remaining 40% is entirely ours and neither of us can judge the other for how they choose to spend it. You want more money, you go out and make more money.
I think it helps both parties to maintain interest in actually keeping family costs down, moreso than pooling everything and then drawing an equal percentage from there, because increases in family expenses necessarily require renegotiating the percentage we both put in.
I won’t comment 15m salary… I’m from the ppl who get no pay here… But from a bunch horror stories here about getting your kids after divorce I suggest you to have 1 separate account for your own savings. Don’t let the wife to get it all.
Im the woman and I’m the one making more money but we don’t pool money together.
I feel like it’s a terrible thing to do that pocket money thing even though my mother was doing the same with my father.
We have 2 small kids now but we still don’t do it. But we don’t drink, smoke or gamble…
If he was doing that maybe it would have been a different story.
Each beginning of the month I calculate all our spendings from the previous month (home loan, hoikuen, utilities, food etc) and we calculate to pay half half each.
I make more but most of my money is invested in stocks etc for the whole family future (retiring, kids uni etc) while he can’t save much.
So it’s not like I go buying myself expensive stuff while he can’t.
We both don’t like brand stuff and both like video games.
When the ps5 came out I managed to preorder it.
Now we resell every game on mercari when we’re done playing and we often end up playing for free, a few hundred yens or even make profits sometimes 😅
So yeah, with all horror stories I wouldn’t not keep my salary but you definitely need to plan on future expenses and be wise spending your money
If you want to keep up the lifestyle of spending ¥20,000 on one night out then either don’t have a kid or get a higher paid job…
I dunno what we are supposed to do about you realising that you’re not able to finance preferred lifestyle anymore? Lol. You’re either pretty dense or a troll
If you want to do allowance then figure out your actual budget and decide the number yourself instead of using a set percentage.
Obviously it’s going to depend on a lot of factors. If you’re only spending like 10% of your take home on rent instead of 30% then your budget is going to look a lot different. You’re probably not going to be as free to spend as you are now, but 20,000 isn’t necessarily right either.
My husband and I don’t do allowance but I know I usually have 50,000 wiggle room in my half of the budget after investment, saving, bills, etc, and my husband and I only make like half of what you do put together. We also don’t have rent or mortgage though, so my situation is different from someone else making the same salary as me.
People can have kids here with only having moderate income. I had a kid without any savings. But here we are, we are doing more than ok, financially. Can even buy luxury items and stuff for my hobbies. You are overthinking it.
New account plus low Karma? Check. God, they’re starting to migrate from r/teachinginjapan to here now.
Oh boy..
This was discussed with my wife, and actually there is a big philosophy behind it.
The man don’t touch one thing about money in the house when they choose this lifestyle. The wife will be the one to deal with all the bills, mortgage payment, school payments etc.
The Pocket money is just what it is, pocket money, and you can use it for whatever you want. It doesn’t mean you can’t buy a PS5, it means you’ll have to collectively decide on it, and she will have the final word.
To be honest I feel like this works for some people but would not work for a LOT of people nowadays. Budgeting and being both financially responsible is more important in my opinion.
But if you think you can’t put your family needs first, then it may be a solution in your case.
15m is a lot of money, even with children, so you should definitely be able to buy a ps5 every year without putting at risk your family. I don’t know your standards of living, but unless you do yearly trip to hawaii in 5* hotels for 15 people, you should be fine!
A lot of dollars and no sense.
Nope.
Have BOTH separate accounts and joint accounts.
Both of you should maintain your independent financial history, credit cards, retirement, etc., BUT you should create joint household accounts, e.g., 1. mortgage and utilities, 2. children’s costs and education, 3. travel, etc.
Draw up a budget and piecemeal your earnings into the accounts monthly to cover debts and obligations first.
Remainder is yours and hers individually to then use for retirement, investment, and discretionary spending.
Of course, there is flexibility to jointly use parts of the Remainder for shared retirement, investments, etc., or shared discretionary purchases.
Starting out first with some presumed doling out of an allowance is both nonsensical and, frankly, demeaning (as a de facto means of control via spending limits and observations).
Debts and obligations first, then independent savings.
Finally, and a very key point here, is the kozukai system doesn’t foster maintenance of two individual financial “identities,” which are very important, more so in cases of death, divorce, and disappearance.
” If I wanted to buy say a PS5 or something I’d have to ‘save’ most of 3 months worth of money etc. ”
Welcome to the real life, where a lot of people need to save in order to buy anything beyond daily necessities.
You do you. There is no single “right way”. Personally, I could not do the pocket money thing. When we got married, we tried putting a set amount of money into a shared bank account. That didn’t work because mainly it was inconvenient. After awhile it just felt silly. So we kept our own.
Basically, we live off of my salary mainly and she banks hers. But I am the one who handles any investments. We decided to focus more on income building than on cost-cutting. It feels better. That said, neither of us have expensive hobbies and could care less about brand goods. We just like eating/drinking out a lot. Child goes to public school. If we ever change our minds and go international school we may have to think differently but so far so good.